As seen in the Washington Square News.
For 25-year-old Gawker editor Jessica Coen, blogging was a way to get out of the office. Four years after writing her first entry, it’s exactly what brought her back into it — sort of.
It’s safe to say Coen’s had a few things to say about the media elite. Called “acid-tongued” by the New York Observer, Coen’s words stretch far beyond her 5-foot-2 frame. After taking the helm of the Manhattan-based media gossip blog over a year ago, loyal readers made her the target of their contempt before she even logged on for the first time as its third editor.
“Before I started, someone made a ‘Gawker’s Dead’ website. I hadn’t even written in anything yet,” Coen said. “That was like, my first week, and I was already called ‘adorably chubby.’ ”
Sitting in a classroom in front of NYU journalism students only a few years her minor, Coen makes it clear that she’s got nothing to worry about after scaling five flights of stairs every day to reach her tiny Lower East Side apartment.
“We were very fortunate to have her come in,” said Patrick Phillips, the course’s professor and creator of IWantMedia.com, a website that compiled media news and resources. He added that she was an ideal speaker because she is the same age as the students in the class. “She speaks the language. She talks like she blogs,” he said.
The meticulous fold in her beige turtleneck and the mirror sheen of her dirty blonde hair hide a potent woman with an unorthodox job that’s all about dishing the dirt on media moguls and celebrities from anonymous tips from readers — not all of which are legitimate.
“Somebody sent me this picture of their penis once. I CC’ed AOL’s Terms of Service and sent back a picture of a cleaver,” Coen said.
Since starting in August 2004 at Gawker Media’s flagship blog, the Michigan native has claimed her own stake in the blogosphere, balancing an ever-expanding readership with a mailbox that never seems empty.
A number of former NYU students have had success in the blogging world, including NYU dropout Alex Pareene, who is currently the editor of the Gawker-owned political blog Wonkette, and former NYU graduate student John Biggs, who is the editor of Gizmodo, a technology blog also owned by Gawker.
Resolutely candid, Coen’s not afraid to admit she works in her pajamas and gives her opinions on the people she rubs virtual elbows with every day.
“Matt Drudge never responds to my IMs,” Coen said. “The man’s driving around Miami in a car with his fedora. He blogs from his convertible.”
Yet behind the gossip about Lindsay Lohan’s latest public faux pas or reinventing the perfect Brokeback Mountain joke, blogging’s a full-time job for Coen.
“The alarm goes off at 6:50 a.m.,” she said. “If I’m not sitting at my desk by 8:00, I’m not happy.”
Blogging hasn’t always been first on the morning list. In 2002, Coen started her own blog as a way to keep her sanity while working a desk job for a high-powered executive in Los Angeles. Updating regularly, Gawker began to pick up her posts, and as soon as she decided to move to New York to pursue journalism at Columbia University, she was on their radar as the perfect replacement for then-editor Choire Sicha.
“Gawker’s beat was already defined,” she said. “I was picked because I kind of match that voice.”
Since taking the position, Coen and co-editor Jesse Oxfeld post 24 times a day on the blog media-elite hate to love, a sly digital alternative to traditional Page Six readers.
“I don’t really care about Lindsay Lohan — I care about the management of Lindsay Lohan,” Coen said. “It’s the business of media that gets us excited.”
Blogging has given Coen a different kind of freedom. With wide eyes, Coen explained to the students that the magic of blogging has been gone since she became a full-time blogger. But don’t be fooled — she’s quick to highlight her ability to dictate her own actions in the absence of an editorial board and managing staff.
“It’s a great job because I get to read and write anything I want,” she said. “I’m allowed to make fun of our advertisers, even.”
Coen remains unconvinced about the stigma her job and the company she works for. She denies that her job is real journalism, preferring to tell people that she simply writes an online gossip column instead of revealing her true identity as “Jessica Gawker.”
“We don’t leave the house; that’s not reporting,” she said. “It’s a media job. It’s not rocket science.”
Yet it’s undeniable that bloggers are getting plenty of attention. Coen and the rest of the Gawker Media crew were assembled from locations all over the globe for a recent Vanity Fair spread — something that awes her friends. she said. Though she recognizes the hype she’s been getting from the people she makes fun of, Coen’s aware that becoming a trendsetter and forging a new media has its drawbacks — mainly, the inability to rise in the ranks of an industry that’s in the midst of forming.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” Coen said. “It could all blow up in my face tomorrow.”
In the meantime, you can’t blame her for wrapping her acrimony in pajamas.